Socio-demographic correlate of knowledge and practice toward COVID-19 among people living in Mosul-Iraq: A cross-sectional study

  1. Balsam Qubais Saeed
  2. Rula Al-Shahrabi
  3. Obasanjo Afolabi Bolarinwa

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Abstract

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a worldwide pandemic, many countries’ authorities, including the Iraqi authorities, started responding and taking action to control the spread of the pandemic. The public’s knowledge and practices play an important role in curbing the spreading of the virus by following the health guidelines. This study aimed to assess the socio-demographic correlate of knowledge and practices of Iraqi living in Mosul-Iraq towards COVID-19 during its rapid rise. A cross-sectional online survey of 909 participants was conducted among a sample of the Mosul-Iraq population between 20 th June to 1 st July 2020. The survey included three parts: 1) socio-demographic characteristics, 2) participants’ knowledge, 3) participants’ practices. T-test, ANOVA, chi-square, and binary logistic regression were used. A p-value less than 0.05 (p < 0.05) was considered statistically significant. The results showed a knowledge and practice mean score of (12.91±1.67) and (21.56± 2.92) with cumulative knowledge and practice of 86% and 76% respectively towards COVID-19. Socio-demographic characteristics such as age, marital status, gender, level of education and employment were statistically related with a higher mean score of knowledge and practice towards the virus as P<0 . 05 . We concluded that the majority of the respondents demonstrate a high level of knowledge and practices towards COVID-19 except for respondents with socio-demographic characteristics such as those who were younger, male respondents, those with lower education and those unemployed as such campaigns that will increase the knowledge and encourage adequate preventive practice towards COVID-19 should be targeted towards this group.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0249310
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.11.20192542: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical approval: The Research Ethics Committee (RIC) at the University of Sharjah, UAE approved this study by the reference number is REC-20-05-31-01, as of 14/06/2020.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data and statistical analysis: Data analysis conducted using Statistical Package for Social Software (SPSS) version 22.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: Since the study is a cross-sectional study, it was conducted within a short time during the pandemic. Moreover, this study was an online survey that expected that the people with a higher level of education would respond to the survey; as such, it doesn’t give privilege to the uneducated population and those with limited access to the internet.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.11.20192542v1 on medRxiv